Advantages and the Active Point Cap

[CallMeBlue]

So I was trying to build a "get out of my face" power for a blaster, and ran into something funny. The rules seem clear enough as written, but the *implications* result in...well, you be the judges.

 

OK, so I started with Blast. Scanning down the list of advantages, I see, "Double Knockback." Oboy, I'm set! That's a +1/2 modifier. So starting with a 60-point Active Point cap, that comes out to an 8d6 blast (with double knockback!). On average, 16 KB before reductions.

 

Of course, a normal 12d6 Blast does 12 KB before reductions. So the DOUBLE knockback blast actually only does 4/3 knockback. Doing a whole boatload less actual damage is not critical, since the point of the power was to knock back a close assailant. However, the KB is thoroughly underwhelming for its intended purpose. Well, obviously, the answer is to take the advantage twice. Except, wait, hrmm, that's not allowed.

 

OK, so using the RAW, what's the best way to build a "get out of my face" power?

 

Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else think that the interaction of Advantages with the Active Point Cap leads to counterintuitive results?

[Steve]

I prefer to place an Active Point cap on things that increase the damage done to the target or ease in hitting them, so Armor-Piercing is subject to the cap but Reduced Endurance is not.

[Hyper-Man]

You've got a good handle on the issue. It's one of the reasons I dislike hard caps.  A 75/60 Active/Damage split is easier to work with and would allow for a 10d6 Blast with x2 KB in your example.

[Ninja-Bear]

Well you could also buy extra energy blast with the limitation only for knockback and you could look into taking standard effect rule to see if it is worth having some dice set in body done.

[Greywind]

Telekinesis only for moving the target away.

[Ninja-Bear]

Telekinesis only for moving the target away.

Or the ever popular; Flight usable against others.

[CallMeBlue]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Some interesting ideas. Hmm. Given a ballistic trajectory, would Leaping, Usable Against Others make sense?

[Hyper-Man]

Or the cheesiest:

 

60 Static Charge: Touch Group Flash 10d6, Does Knockback (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Double Knockback (+1/2) (60 Active Points) - END=2

 

*Note that this is only viable vs. targets with a sense of touch so it will not work vs. inanimate objects.

[DasBroot]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Some interesting ideas. Hmm. Given a ballistic trajectory, would Leaping, Usable Against Others make sense?

 

Careful with the UAA and travel powers. That way leads to the dark side in a hurry.

 

"GMs should consider UOO’s “Stop Sign” to be flashing red. It enables characters to create many flexible and interesting abilities, but it’s also unusually easy to abuse. GMs should be particularly wary of UOO powers that seem to cheaply duplicate the effects of an existing Power (such as buying Flight UAA instead of Telekinesis). Because UOO can interact with so many Game Elements in ways impossible to anticipate ahead of time,

it requires GMs to make many judgment calls in handling it." - Champions Complete pg 120

 

In this case, though, you're better off with Telekinesis.  True for 60 AP you could get 60 m of leaping usable as an attack vs a 48 meter throw using the same AP Telekinesis at first glance.  Second glance, as is often the case with UAA, is where that kind of falls apart.

 

First off, I have no idea when you'd actually get to move the target with it.  Applying the leap as an attack is an attack  but does it include instantly using the leap? If it does - how far could you make them leap? The 60 m doesn't make sense as that's a full phase move.  30 meters as a standard half phase move as a free side effect of applying the attack sounds more reasonable. If that's the case, though, a telekinetic throw of the same AP can legitimately toss a 100 kg character 48 meters as a free action after a successful grapple and doesn't involve a flashing red stop sign.

 

Second off, as always, is the balance of such an attack.  With the telekinesis Density Man isn't moving as far - a fair result for a blast of pure power trying to move something incredibly strong/heavy away.  With the silly UAA - he's going that 30 meters (or more).  Doesn't matter if he weighs 20 tons at the moment. Doesn't matter if he's packing a 60 strength.  He's over there now.  The points invested to make sure that Density Man doesn't flop all over the map are negated.

 

It's not the most brutal example of UAA movement being abused - that's UAA Flight 1 meter*, which can immobilize any non flying / teleporting character in the game indefinitely for 2 AP (replacing 10 to 10,000 AP of TK for stopping someone from moving purposes) - but it does trump existing powers at their own shtick.

 

 

* Most brutal for point efficiency.  If your GM is on crack there are plenty of other UAA movements that are much worse on  gameplay. Like the Phantom Zone Projector (UAA Extradimensional Movement), an Imprisonment spell (UAA Tunneling, Fill In adder - straight down they go, end power. Hope they can hold their breath or are good diggers themselves), or the Guantano-Beam (UAA Teleport, Fixed Point - that point being an inescapable jail cell in your base. Or deep space.). 

[Markdoc]

There's a couple of points to consider.

 

First, when we look at attacks, there is a tendency to look at the damage without considering defence. In the case of the double KB attack, the defence is KNB resistance (which is so rare in most games that we can probably safely ignore it) and the 2d6 that we roll to decrease KNB (or 1d6 if flying).

 

Looked at in context, the normal 12d6 blast will do 12-(2 to 12) for an average of 5 KNB, while the 8d6 double KNB will do 16-(2 to 12) for an average of 9 KNB. Not quite double, it's true, but close. More importantly for a power like this, it will knock the enemy back 99.5% of the time, vs about only 97% of the time for the regular blast. If the enemy does have some resistance to KNB, due to weight or the actual defence, the gap between the power with double KNB and the regular power will increase: 5 points of KNB resistance will mostly neutralise the KNB from a regular attack, but not the double KNB attack. So it's more reliable at doing what it is supposed to, and it's probably the way I'd build the power.

 

The second point is that caps are an optional rule, and they are optional for a reason. They are basically training-wheels for less confident GMs, and like real training wheels they are a hindrance almost as often as they are a help - and once you are up to speed, far more often than they are a help. As GM, you should not let them become a straitjacket (though I'd also add that in my opinion, if the GM is not using caps for his NPCs, he shouldn't subject his players to them, either). In the end, there's no substitute for the GM carefully examining new powers. I can't see that the 10d6 Blast with x2 KB suggested above would be terribly unbalancing in a game where 12d6 EB is commonplace (though it could, with clever use, do significantly more damage, it's also a more expensive power).

 

cheers, Mark

[CallMeBlue]

Some good additional food for thought.

 

Since the character in question already has a 12D6 blast and 40-STR TK in his multipower, that's probably good enough anyway.

[Ninja-Bear]

Gotta disagree with Marcdoc about point cas being a hinderence. Even being experienced GM they are a useful tool.

[Hugh Neilson]

Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else think that the interaction of Advantages with the Active Point Cap leads to counterintuitive results?

I think it was back in the SETAC days leading up to 6e that one of us mentioned certain advantages causing issues with AP caps. Steve Long indicated that was why he set caps in terms of DC's, not AP. So the 5e/6e designer thinks so as well.

[DasBroot]

Gotta disagree with Marcdoc about point cas being a hinderence. Even being experienced GM they are a useful tool.

 

 

I think it was back in the SETAC days leading up to 6e that one of us mentioned certain advantages causing issues with AP caps. Steve Long indicated that was why he set caps in terms of DC's, not AP. So the 5e/6e designer thinks so as well.

 

Yes to both these things.  In my long term gaming group (over two decades) we love the idea of Champions, but each of us picked a 'specialty' to GM. One guy was the Champions guy. I'm  the D&D and Shadowrun guy.  Another guy was the White Wolf guy.

 

The Champions GM hated the idea of caps with a passion, as well as any kind of GM oversight on powers, really.  It's a disasterous combination. Any attempt for the 'Champions GM' to run a game usually ended in two sessions of character creation, 1 - 3 sessions of play, and then - having ruined his story and possibly the entire setting due to a few unforeseen power combinations on a few notoriously disruptive players (pretty much all of us back when we were teenagers, if I'm looking back objectively)  - done. This happened a half dozen times over the past two decades.

 

I decided to take a stab at the Champions GM slot and treated it the same way.  It wasn't a TOTAL disaster but three sessions in we, in a group vote, decided to rework the characters with DC caps on attack powers and AP caps on everything else this time (at character creation).  Inexperienced players were doing things like taking 30d6 blasts but themselves only having 15 rPD/rED . Experienced players were going the other direction - enhancing defenses to ridiculous levels (needed if Mr 30d6 got Mind Controlled with his whopping 10 ego and no Mental Defense, in their minds) and keeping attacks moderate.  What our resident 'if it doesn't have a stop sign, it's crap' player ended up doing leapfrogged past 'kill the game' straight into 'kill the genre'  (he left the game after the rework).

 

The only real rule we have in our gaming group regardless of RPG is "When your shtick goes off - how fun is it for everyone else at the table?" - yet Champions, where that rule is needed most, has always been our kryptonite.  It's fine for Iron Man and the Punisher to team up in a comic book but at a table (unless you go out of your way to split the party) they really don't belong in the same fight.

 

The caps did help everyone get on the same page - and after the first 12 experience points I took the caps off.  With xp being slow and powers being expensive people are tending to do things like pick up slots in a multipower or raise a skill over setting anything to 'max'.  When another player decided he wanted to run his own Champions game on alternating dates with me there was no question as to whether we'd use the caps at character creation again - we just each see 'superhero' too differently to do otherwise.

[Zephrosyne]

I am firmly in the camp of caps not being a hindrance, regardless of the gm's experience.  I don't think that you should be a slave to them but I think they can be a very useful guideline and baseline, particularly at the start of a campaign if the caps in question are well thought out and applied sensibly.  That being said, caps are no substitute for gm oversight and sound judgement. 

[CrosshairCollie]

I generally stick to DC and Defense caps rather than Active Point caps, and even then, there's wiggle room.  There are powers way under a typical AP cap that I'd never allow, and similarly, lots of stuff comes out feeling overpriced by the system math.

 

If you reallllyyyyy wanna drop a hundred points on Flight, knock yourself out (and if you do a move-through, you WILL).  Though, full disclosure, I'm the only person I know of around here who knows how to make HERO characters, so I'm the one who crunches all the numbers anyway, so a player showing me a character for approval never happens.

[Ninja-Bear]

I am firmly in the camp of caps not being a hindrance, regardless of the gm's experience. I don't think that you should be a slave to them but I think they can be a very useful guideline and baseline, particularly at the start of a campaign if the caps in question are well thought out and applied sensibly. That being said, caps are no substitute for gm oversight and sound judgement.

Yes, this is what I was implying. I do go with soft caps myself.

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh Callmeblue here are quick definitions. Hard caps are things like 50 act pt. As your example above no mattwr what if a player spends even one point over then its disallowed. Soft caps is that there is a suggested limit say 50 act pts again. A player buys a power at 51. The player asks the GM to seek approval. The GM can say ok thats fine and allow it. Iirc? Armadillo in fourth ed.did this. The cap was 60 act pts but to make one of his miltipower slots work, he was allowed 61 pts. Btw at the time I didn't get the concept of hard/soft caps.

[Markdoc]

If you search these boards, you'll find a ton of threads - including this one - where caps are the problem, not a solution. I understand that for beginning GMs, they might be a helpful guideline (although there are plenty of posts from noobie GMs frustrated by game-wrecking powers well under the cap). As multiple GMs have noted, you still need to examine all power constructs to be certain that they will fit into your game: it's quite possible to make game-breaking powers at low active points or DC. If you do check all powers, caps become more or less irrelevant. If you don't, you are going to have problems regardless of caps.

 

Now if, as a GM, you like caps, that's fine. It's your game, and if it works for you, great. But caps are an optional rule, not a core one, so the assumption that you have to have caps in your game is mistaken (and obviously, personally I think they have more negative effects than positive). That's not to say that "anything goes" - for most games, that's a recipe for disaster*. It's the job of a good GM to align his expectations with those of the players, so that everyone is on the same page. Caps are one way of doing that, but they are a very blunt, not terribly effective tool, IMO. Personally, I try to do it by describing the power level and atmosphere in terms of games, films or movies the players already know.

 

This is not a Hero system specific problem. We had the problem of mismatched expectations in our last D&D game - the GM expected "mundane fantasy" and we came at it from the angle of "over-the-top anime heroes". The campaign ground to a halt over that issue, even though there, the powers are predefined.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

* actually we did run a series of anything-goes games, and they were great learning tools for nascent Hero system GMs, as well as huge fun. The players were allowed to make whatever they wanted, as long as it was rules-legal. Then we let the PCs slug it out. It was hillarious. We got all the classic abuses, long before they became classics: the pixie sniper, the orbital mindcontroller, the telepathic, mindcontrolling tunnelling slug, the unstoppable robot, the dimension rift genades, the incredible exploding man, you name it. But these games were planned to be one-offs, not continuing campaigns We expected comedic mayhem, and by god, we got it.

[Hugh Neilson]

It's funny how fast the suggestion at the start (AP caps become problematic) became "you can't run a game with no limits". DC and defense caps, in my view, are pretty relevant. AP caps tend to be less so. In a game built around 12 DC's, a 10d6 0 END power (75 AP) is an underpowered attack you can use at will, and doesn't have any real unbalancing effect. Plenty of 60 AP powers will be considerably more problematic.

[Ninja-Bear]

It's funny how fast the suggestion at the start (AP caps become problematic) became "you can't run a game with no limits". DC and defense caps, in my view, are pretty relevant. AP caps tend to be less so. In a game built around 12 DC's, a 10d6 0 END power (75 AP) is an underpowered attack you can use at will, and doesn't have any real unbalancing effect. Plenty of 60 AP powers will be considerably more problematic.

That 10 DC isn't overpowered if you build characters with defenses that can compensate for that damage. Trust me, I ran 3 PD total agents and 8DC was nasty. Hence my use of soft caps though to be fair what I call caps are more benchmark/guidelines.

[Tasha]

That 10 DC isn't overpowered if you build characters with defenses that can compensate for that damage. Trust me, I ran 3 PD total agents and 8DC was nasty. Hence my use of soft caps though to be fair what I call caps are more benchmark/guidelines.

He said that 10d6 was UNDERpowered in a DC12 game.

10d6 averages 35 stun. DC 12 games should be averaging 24Def up to 32def (2x DC/2.5x DC) 10 stun isn't bad, but vs a brick with 30+ defenses it's chickenfeed. Now high speed can more than make up for the difference, but we are talking about averages.

12d6 averages 42 stun. vs 24 def does 17 stun which is close to a stun number for most characters that have average con (I am assuming 18 or 20 con). vs 30 defenses it does 12 stun which isn't bad and will generate 60 stun a turn (Assuming average spd 5)

[Ninja-Bear]

He said that 10d6 was UNDERpowered in a DC12 game.

10d6 averages 35 stun. DC 12 games should be averaging 24Def up to 32def (2x DC/2.5x DC) 10 stun isn't bad, but vs a brick with 30+ defenses it's chickenfeed. Now high speed can more than make up for the difference, but we are talking about averages.

12d6 averages 42 stun. vs 24 def does 17 stun which is close to a stun number for most characters that have average con (I am assuming 18 or 20 con). vs 30 defenses it does 12 stun which isn't bad and will generate 60 stun a turn (Assuming average spd 5)

Tasha underpowered if you have defenses based on 12 Dc I agree however if you don't have defenses near that then it is overpowered.

 

Hence why I use guidelines and think that they are useful.

 

Oh and I wasn't disagreeing with Hugh either.

[Tasha]

Tasha underpowered if you have defenses based on 12 Dc I agree however if you don't have defenses near that then it is overpowered.

 

Hence why I use guidelines and think that they are useful.

 

Oh and I wasn't disagreeing with Hugh either.

 

You are still choosing to ignore what was said. When he said DC 12 game, that kind of assumes that the defenses will be up to participating in that game. Otherwise you are moving the goalposts and not acknowledging what Hugh was saying.

 

I use Campaign Averages and semi hard maximums for my games. It just makes things easier. 

[Ninja-Bear]

You are still choosing to ignore what was said. When he said DC 12 game, that kind of assumes that the defenses will be up to participating in that game. Otherwise you are moving the goalposts and not acknowledging what Hugh was saying.

 

I use Campaign Averages and semi hard maximums for my games. It just makes things easier.

Tasha i see my oiint wasn't made clear. One has to make sure that defenses are in line with what is expected damage classes and what type of damage too. 4D6 Ego blast is nasty if there is no Ego defense. And this illustrstes some of the problems that can (and I think a lot) are caused by point caps. The numbers are usefull but they cannot be in a vacuum. There has to be context with the numbers. Some of the context is genre-like we are playing a power armor game so almost all powers have a focus. Others could be mechanical-no mental powers.